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Meshing > Displaying meshes and element thickness

Using the Show Only and Show Adjacent commands to control object display

You can use the Show Only and Show Adjacent commands to manage and control the display of your model in the graphics window. Both commands are designed to make it easier to limit and control the objects being displayed, which is particularly useful when you are working with a very complex finite element model.

Using the Show Only command

Use the Show Only command to display only entities that you select. For example:

  • When you are working with a mesh in a FEM file, you can use Show Only to display only selected polygon faces.

  • When you are working with boundary conditions in a Simulation file, you can use Show Only to display selected polygon geometry and associated simulation objects, such as points, splines, conics, meshes, loads, boundary conditions, and mesh points.

Using the Show Adjacent command

The Show Adjacent command works with the Show Only command. The Show Adjacent command shows all faces adjacent to the selected face. For example, once you've used the Show Only command to limit your display (for example, to only a selected set of polygon faces) you can then use the Show Adjacent command to selectively add additional adjacent faces to that display. This process can be useful, for example, for examining an area where you might want to create a mesh mating condition.

Example of using the Show Only and Show Adjacent commands together

In the following example, we used Show Only (A) to display only the polygon face on the selected fillet. (B) shows the resulting display.

We then used Show Adjacent (C) to add all adjacent faces (all faces that share an edge with the displayed face) to the current display. (D) shows the resulting display.

Where do I find it?

Application Pre/Post
Command Finder Show Only or Show Adjacent
How do I

Change the default display for all new mesh collectors

Change the display of all existing meshes and all mesh collectors

Change the display of a selected mesh collector

Change the display of one or more selected meshes

Reset the mesh display to the defaults

Edit the attributes for multiple selected entities

Learn more

Mesh colors

Assigning mesh colors by quality checks

Displaying nodes independently of elements

Displaying node and element labels

Controlling display contention in 2D models

Creating displays to validate element thickness

Quick links

Command reference

Pre/Post video examples

Bulk Entry Descriptions

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Using the Show Only and Show Adjacent commands to control object display, Simcenter 3D 2021.1 Series

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Source: https://docs.sw.siemens.com/en-US/doc/289054037/PL20200601120302950.advanced/id625001_v1 · retrieved 2026-07-17